”Nothing is more basic, more essential, more foundational, or more important to a child’s success in life than the ability to read well,” according to the couple.

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Stephen and Ayesha Curry are spreading the spirit of the season with the gift of literature.

The Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation, which the pair helped establish, has donated thousands of books to classrooms in Oakland, California.

“We along with our entire team at Eat. Learn. Play. understand the importance of early childhood education, especially when it comes to literacy,” Stephen and Ayesha tell PEOPLE in an exclusive statement.

A child’s ability to read proficiently is the single most crucial factor in determining his or her future success. There is a lot to do, but with help from organizations like Literati, we believe we can make a difference in the lives of these kids.

Each box containing Stephen’s “Underrated” book club donation will contain six books: five novels for kids and one for adults.

In addition to the 1,000 boxes of books given away at the recent Christmas with the Currys event, the Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation and Literati will be donating a total of 14,000 boxes to Oakland Unified Schools before Christmas to be distributed to students who are learning remotely due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Community organizations will receive the remaining portion of the donation, which was made possible in part by Bay Area investor Aydin Senkut of Felicis Ventures, in the coming year.

Stephen and Ayesha have been keeping busy at home with their three kids, two-year-old son Canon W. Jack and five- and eight-year-old daughters Ryan Carson and Riley.

Ayesha and Stephen are “in the thick of it” when it comes to figuring out homeschooling tactics for their two children, the oldest of whom “officially started school” last autumn, as she told PEOPLE in September.

The host of Family Food Fight said, “My oldest is pretty disciplined, so that’s been easy, but our 5-year-old has a little trouble staying engaged for an extended period of time.”

Ayesha and Stephen discovered that one strategy that helps Ryan “is to do some kind of physical activity right before class starts to focus the mind and get some of the wiggles out, and periodic ‘dance breaks’ between lessons.”

“We also added resistance workout bands to the legs of her chair, which gives her something to do if she gets antsy during a long Zoom session,” The Full Plate author explained.

Ayesha has praised Stephen for his assistance in easing their children into distance education.

Thankfully, Stephen has been quite helpful to me with the kids’ schooling and their education. In a September episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show, she joked that she was fine with her husband being responsible for the children’s schooling because she had given birth to them.

“making up for lost time, to be quite frank,” is what the mother thinks Stephen is doing with their daughters.

“He would sleep through all of the diaper changes and the late nights when they were babies, so now this is his strong suit,” according to her.